Public Comment

The brouhaha over Chinese hacking US corporations for commercial gain exposes us to charges of monumental hypocrisy. Are Americans and our allies supposed to believe that our (NSA) hacking is for the greater good and Chinese hacking is inherently evil? It’s nice to be assured by our government that when we hack, our hearts are pure and we would never hack for commercial gain.

The criminal hacking charge that the United States has filed against specific foreign officials is largely political theater to demonstrate that we are ever vigilant to spying and blunt any criticisms that we are weak on industrial espionage. We have established the ground rules for hacking, namely military hacking is okay but hacking for commercial gain is verboten!

There is little chance that the Chinese officials who were named in the indictment will ever see a day in a US court as no extradition treaty exists between our two countries. Furthermore, because of our profligate spending on military adventures, we are beholden to China for a staggering debt of $1.27 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds. The White House press secretary, Jay Carney statement that “we don’t gather intelligence for the benefit of U.S. companies” defies credulity. Such statements do little to assuage growing anger over the NSA activities such as spying on Petrogas, Brazil’s offshore oil reserves and other trade secrets, Chinese Huawei, the giant Chinese maker of Internet switching equipment, and Pacnet, the Hong Kong-based operator of undersea fiber optic cables.